Deanne writes:<\/p>\n
I am currently almost 10 weeks pregnant with sweet baby number 5.\u00a0 We will not find out the gender of the baby until D-day sometime in February.\u00a0 When our last child was born, she was nameless for almost 24 hours because we couldn’t decide on a name that sounded good with our other kiddos’ names.\u00a0 We now have one boy (Bradley Allen) and three girls (Molly Joy, Lily Faith and Karly Grace).\u00a0 We would like to stick with the “lee” sound ending and a “y” at the end\u00a0so our kids all have that common theme in their names.<\/p>\n
We have discussed these girl first names (middle name is set on Hope):<\/p>\n
Elly
Kelly
Ashley
Emily
Zelly<\/p>\nHubby has his heart set on Riley Allen\u00a0for a boy name, but I am open to suggestions. :)<\/p>\n
Any help or ideas would be much appreciated!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
In larger sibling groups, I find it can be a helpful exercise to divide the boys from the girls. So, for example, I’d look for a brother name for Bradley, and then double-check to see how well it would go with the sister names; and then I’d look for a sister name for Molly, Lily, and Karly, and then double-check to see how well it would go with the brother name.<\/p>\n
I think Riley makes a very nice brother name for Bradley, and also goes well with Molly, Lily, and Karly. Other possibilities:<\/p>\n
Charley
Conley
Connolly
Donnelly
Finley
Huxley
Presley
Rawley
Ridley
Wesley
Westley<\/p>\nNow I hold those candidates up to Molly, Lily, and Karly. Rawley rhymes or almost rhymes with Molly. Charley rhymes with Karly. Finley is a little tricky because it’s being used for girls more than boys (given to 502 boys and 874 girls in 2011, according to the Social Security Administration). There’s a similar issue with the name Riley; there are a ton of spellings, but looking just at the Riley spelling, it was given to 3427 boys and 5002 girls in 2011, according to the Social Security Association. Adding up the thousands of girls named Rileigh, Rilee, Rylee, Ryleigh, Rylie, Ryley, Reilly, etc., puts it even more tipped toward the girls. And Presley has this issue too, given to 1384 girls and only 123 boys in 2011.<\/p>\n
Ridley might be too close to Bradley.<\/p>\n
I like how Wesley and Westley would give him a nickname comparable to Brad: Brad and Wes, Brad and West.<\/p>\n
Girl names are easier, because so many girl names end in the -ly sound. The challenge with girl names is finding a name that works well in style with but doesn’t sound too similar to her sister’s names; I’d be looking for something with a distinctly different set of sounds—a different starting sound, ideally, and\/or a different primary vowel sound, and\/or some different consonant sounds. From your list of girl names, Elly seems too similar to Lily, and Kelly may be too similar to Karly. Other possibilities:<\/p>\n
Ainsley
Amberly
Aracely
Bailey
Berkeley
Briarley
Briley
Brinley
Cecily
Emberley
Everly
Hailey
Lesley
Kenley
Kinley
Mckinley
Nataly
Paisley
Tenley<\/p>\nBrinley, Briley, and Briarley might be too similar to Bradley.<\/p>\n
Because Molly, Lily, and Karly are all familiar names, I’d be inclined to stick to another familiar name for a fourth girl. And since they’re all strictly feminine names, I’d be inclined to stick to another feminine name. Names that meet those two preferences: Cecily, Hailey, Lesley, and Nataly. Ashley and Emily from your list would also meet those preferences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Deanne writes: I am currently almost 10 weeks pregnant with sweet baby number 5.\u00a0 We will not find out the gender of the baby until D-day sometime in February.\u00a0 When our last child was born, she was nameless for almost 24 hours because we couldn’t decide on a name that sounded good with our other […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-1AR","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6129\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}